"Washington Post" reporter Fainaru traveled with several groups of security contractors to find out what motivates them to put their lives in danger every day. What emerges is a searing, revealing, and sometimes darkly funny look at the men who live and work on the battlefields of Iraq.
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"Washington Post" reporter Fainaru traveled with several groups of security contractors to find out what motivates them to put their lives in danger every day. What emerges is a searing, revealing, and sometimes darkly funny look at the men who live and work on the battlefields of Iraq.
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Usually I avoid books that look like this because they are glorified versions of weapons technology, hero worship, and killing "the other." This cover was slightly deceiving, and luckily, I had heard a book review on NPR before I saw the cover.
Fainaru has spent a lot of time in Iraq as a embedded journalist were he became interested in the "parallel army" that arose around the US military. When there weren't enough US soldiers to cover missions, private contract armies arose including the now famous Blackwater, and a lesser known company (that contracts to Halliburton) that Fainaru followed called Triple Canopy.
This contract armies have no rules, no official - and some cases none at all- equipment, very little training, and make enormous paychecks. As opposed to many of the soldiers who make a small enough paycheck on combat pay that they are eligible for welfare benefits, the contract "soldiers" are pulling in $7,000 a month. Fainaru decides, under great controversy, to call these contract workers mercenaries. Hired guns. The problem is that ultimately, since they are contract workers, the US government is paying these bills. Enlisted soldiers stand by insulted rake it in.
But these mercenaries are the same young men who make up the US army. But they aren't protected in the same ways. The contract mercenary that Fainaru follows throughout the beginning of the book swore that he would never get captured, and even had a death pact with his fellow mercenaries. John Cote, pronounced Co-Tay, was captured, skinned alive, and beheaded not too long after these series of interviews. (This isn't a spoiler, we learn he dies in the introduction.) He had done two tours of duty in the real US military in Iraq and Afghanistan and decided he couldn't go back to "civilian life". He traded his twenties, and eventually his life, for the money and adventure.
Because of the lack of rules and military control over the contract mercenaries, there is a lot of confusion over who governs them. When this question was posed to George Bush, Bush laughed and said, "That's a great question, I'm going to have to ask Rumsfeld about that." Which means there was no one there to bring accountability when a mercenary who went crazy and shot up a cab filled with civilians. There is no screening process, several of the mercenaries are self-proclaimed alcoholics and people who "just want to kill." The residents of Alice's Restaurant are welcome here.
Likewise, there is no one there when a convoy of mercenaries is driving around with no armor and no back-up support.
I've been listening to the Audio version and Fainaru has a fantastic reading voice.
